by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

In the Garden

I’ve had a garden for many years, but this was the year I decided to get serious about it. It both was and wasn’t because of the pandemic — I’ll admit, it’s nice to have something pleasant to focus on when the world is falling apart; but also, I come from a long lineage of green thumbs, and maintaining a garden feels grounding for me in a way that little else does.

Amaranth, sunflower, cucumber, squash, and zinnia bed - The Good Table At Home

Something new I’m trying this year is Companion Planting. Simply put, Companion Planting is putting different types of plants together in a way that maximizes their harvest in yield, flavor, or pest reduction.

The most often stated example is the Three Sisters Trio: corn, beans, and squash. The corn provides a strong base for the beans to climb, the beans make nitrogen for the soil that helps all three plants to grow, and the squash shades the soil at the base, helping the plants retain moisture and reducing weeds. Squash is also prickly, which keeps away raccoons and other pests.

In the bed in the above picture, I’ve put the taller plants in the back row — amaranth (purple), sunflower (tall), and a crookneck squash in the back right corner. There are cucumbers in the first row, which the taller plants will shade. I’ve also planted zinnias in this bed to attract pollinators. There were nasturtiums in here too, which attract pests away from the vegetables, but they got sun-stressed and didn’t like the denser soil, so they’re in a pot off to the side in a succulent blend soil.

Little Gem Lettuce, Tomato, Parsley, Borage, and Cosmos

In this bed above, I’ve planted tomatoes next to borage, a flowering plant that attracts bees and tiny pest-eating wasps. Parsley also attracts insects away from tomatoes, so I’ve put these plants in between each tomato plant. I’m also going to transplant some dill in here in order to detract aphids and mites. The cosmos attract pollinators.

More parsley and tomatoes, onions, swiss chard, daisies

In the last bed, we planted onions by taking sprouting onions from the grocery store and plunking them in the soil. It’s an experiment. But onions “are thought to protect against borers, mites, slugs, and cutworms, as well as maggots of all types.” We’re planting them with Swiss Chard, which they like, and more parsley and tomatoes. There’s also a watermelon in there. It’s kind of a grab bag because I got a little overzealous with my seed starts this year.

If you’d like to learn more about Companion Planting, here are the two resources I used:
Companion Planting Guide by Farmer’s Almanac
Companion Planting Chart by Live Love Fruit - this one has a map of how you can lay out your beds as well!

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

In the Kitchen

When spring rolls around, I always look forward to asparagus season. There’s something so nice about the green, fresh quality of asparagus, and I love adding it to frittatas, soups, stir-frys, and other dishes. The one we’re sharing today was inspired by Colleen, Melinda’s wife, who made it without a recipe the other night for dinner. I am not nearly as adept a cook, so I’m adapting this recipe from The Healthy Foodie.

A note on the salmon: Colleen sourced hers from local purveyor Pinoli Farmhouse Kitchen. Check them out if you’d like.

Image courtesy of The Healthy Foodie

Smoked Salmon and Asparagus Risotto
by The Healthy Foodie

INGREDIENTS
2-3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 shallots, finely chopped
1-1/2 cup Arborio rice
3 cups chicken broth
3 cups water
1/2 cup dry white wine or vermouth
1/2 cup grated fresh Parmesan cheese
5.3 oz smoked salmon, chopped, (plus more to garnish)
8.8 oz asparagus, cut into 1-1/2" pieces

INSTRUCTIONS

1. In a medium saucepan, warm the chicken broth and water over medium heat.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet or saute pan set over medium heat; add the shallots and cook to soften, about 1 minute. Add the rice, stir to coat with oil and toast slightly, about 2 minutes. When the rice has taken on a pale, golden color, add about 1/2 cup of broth to the rice and stir constantly until the broth is absorbed. Continue adding broth, about 1/2 cup at a time, stirring continuously until the liquid is completely absorbed between each addition. Repeat until the rice is soft and creamy, which will take about 45 minutes.

3. Once the rice is cooked to your liking, stir in asparagus, add white wine or vermouth and cook, stirring constantly, until the asparagus is cooked to your liking.

4. Stir in Parmesan and smoked salmon; season with salt and pepper to taste and serve without delay.

5. Garnish with more smoked salmon, asparagus tips and grated Parmesan cheese, if desired.

by Rev. Dr. Melinda V. McLain

Good Table News

Great news for our site! It has been a LONG and winding road, but we finally have a building permit to begin the renovation of the Adachi site!

Deep thanks to all of you who have worked so hard to get us to this moment - especially our Project Manager, Colleen Rodger and Architect, Darrel DeBoer, plus all the folks from Planting Justice, the Good Table UCC, and all our wonderful community volunteers who have helped us reach this milestone! We are so grateful for all of you!

Come out for our next Community Work + Fun Day on Saturday, April 24th, 12p - 3p. Wear a mask, sturdy shoes, and bring gloves and gardening gear. 

In the Community

Last week got me thinking about neighborliness and community.

We live along a creek, and several trees have fallen, necessitating their removal. These are BIG trees: 40-50 feet and the creek is “private”, so it is a collective responsibility. The laws around this are pretty complicated as well.

Colleen with a log from one of the trees

One of our trees fell across the creek on the land of one of our neighbors and they also had one come down onto our side. We have the best access, so they found us via NextDoor and we decided to hire the same person to do the work via coming through our yard. This meant we had to sell and move out an old trailer, which was a multi-step, difficult process.

Meanwhile, there was another big tree blocking the creek that two other neighbors on the other side couldn’t decide as to whose responsibility, so the neighbors who originally contacted us had the crew pull it out at their expense. Doing this necessary tree work is difficult and expensive. We were so fortunate to have generous and kind neighbors to work with, but I worry about other neighbors who may not have the wherewithal to hire tree folks to come do this work well. And I’m concerned about neighbors who have a hard time getting along. This spirit of neighborliness made this process so much easier than it could have been. It showed me, once again, how vital community is, especially after the year we’ve all had.

Also, the tree guys pointed out a wild bee hive along the creek so now we know where all our bees come from! Sadly, we also now know that one of our huge stands of bay laurels has a fungus that is hollowing them out. All of this is likely is a result of the long drought. It’s sad, magnificent, and some folks are in danger of having a big tree land on their house. Doesn’t that just epitomize the times: tragic, beautiful, deeply sad, with moments of great joy and working together. That’s a broader metaphor for life, I think, written in the trees.

A wild bee hive is living in the crevice in the tree trunk on the left

If you’d like to learn more about our local creeks and want to help, check out: SPAWNERS, a great local group working to restore our watersheds.

By Rev. Dr. Melinda V. McLain

Spiritual Touchstone

“Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.”

— Dorothy Thompson, legendary American journalist, (1893-1961)

Reverend Melinda in an amazing Easter ensemble

One of my more crusty professors in seminary once said, “I can cope with Santa Claus, but the Easter Bunny ought to be obliterated”. He was correct that Santa is at least based somewhat upon the life of St. Nicholas who was known for giving gifts in secret. But the origin of a bunny (or perhaps a hermaphroditic hare) bringing eggs as gifts to children is fuzzier and contains quite a few odd elements that would appear to have very little to do with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. Also, I am pretty certain that no one in first century Palestine had access to chocolate of any kind.

Personally, I love the rabbits, peeps, and eggs associated with Easter. As a child, I wasn’t too fond of the Easter “outfits”, but I did like coloring eggs and then finding them. Also, I still enjoy singing the loud “alleluia” songs. And there have been times when I was singing in a church that had a big pipe organ that Easter meant singing ear-splitting anthems accompanied by brass - another fun thing to do! Easter for many folks really is a lot of fun and festive hoopla!

But I also understand my professor’s problem with all this Easter hullabaloo. Such celebrations don’t quite connect with the high drama of the story of Jesus. Nor does it resemble the saga of the horribly frightened disciples who spent much of the first year following the crucifixion of Jesus in hiding or facing various forms of gruesome persecution by the Roman empire. Their well-documented travails with Roman imperial power make it clear that their movement was explicitly designed to resist the religion of empire even if - just like Jesus - it cost them their lives.

Next week is Holy Week, when those of us on the Jesus path will retell the stories of that ragtag movement of folks determined to proclaim good news to the poor, the oppressed, and those suffering injustice. But beyond telling those stories, many of us will seek ways to embody their fearlessness - even in the face of a culture that thinks it foolish to live our lives in service to others.

When Easter Sunday comes this year on April 4th, I plan to sing a few “alleluias”, but if the real power of resurrection happens for me, it will be in the form of a recommitment to the prophet Micah’s call to “seek justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly (like Jesus) with God” even when I’m afraid, confused, or just simply don’t feel like it.

My UCC colleague and dear friend the Rev. Donna Schaper, in her wonderful “gardening” book Calmly Plotting the Resurrection has written, “resurrection is rarely complete. We are still on our way. Easter week will come and go, and some of us will rise all the way to our forgiven selves, and all the way up to our capacity to forgive others. Some of us won’t. God help us to rise.”

Let us rise!

In Our Community

The rollout for COVID-19 vaccines hasn’t been super smooth or transparent, and if you haven’t been vaccinated already, you may be wondering how to get your shots. Here’s a very quick rundown of the potential paths to vaccination.

1. Check your eligibility here: myturn.ca.gov

2. This will also enroll you in the state’s program and notify you when you may be eligible. So stay tuned via email and text to see when it might be your turn.

3. Also, if you are eligible, check with your healthcare provider/health network. Several folks got their shots via the Stanford, UCSF, Sutter Health, or Kaiser Permanente websites. Note: we are linking to the main hubs for vaccines for these websites, but you’ll need an account to be eligible to sign up.

4. If there are no appointments close by, consider searching further out. The vaccine has been unequally distributed, with urban areas often getting fewer than they need. Please don’t do the “refresh refresh refresh” to nab an appointment in these areas (you could be taking the turn of someone who it’s meant for there) — it’s more that if they have a surplus due to over-distribution and an appointment is easy to get, take advantage of that if you are able to drive there. In this case, you’d be freeing up a shot closer to home for someone who can’t travel as far.

President Joe Biden assures us that there will be a vaccine for every adult by May 1, and that the goal is for all adults who want a vaccine to be vaccinated by July 4. So if it’s not happening for you now, don’t worry — we’ll all get there together soon.

Stay strong and we’ll see you on the other side of this.

REMINDER
We invite you to come to our next community work day on Saturday March 27th from 12p - 3p. We have a variety of gardening and cleaning projects that can be done safely while wearing masks and maintaining physical distance outside. Be sure to wear sturdy shoes, bring work gloves, and of course, wear a mask.

Taken at our last work day before the pandemic, February 2020

Tender seedlings poking through the soil

From the Garden

Around this time, my thoughts invariably turn to my garden and the promise of spring. Thankfully, we’re getting some rainy weather as I write this, but all the more reason to start your seeds indoors and plant them outside later.

I was cowed by my lack of knowledge at first. Every time I’ve tried to start seeds, I’ve only gotten good results from the hardiest of plants. But as it turns out, it’s pretty straightforward.

You need:

• Seed starting trays of some kind (I’m using peat for now)

• Good soil, preferably a seed starting mix but generic potting soil will do

• Seeds

• A sunny, warm spot — I’m using my greenhouse window

First off, read the instructions on each packet of seeds. For most of them, you just make a small hole, gently cover them, and water. But some, like my Strawflower seeds, only germinate with light. It’s like reading the recipe all the way through before you start cooking; know what you’ll need before you start.

I filled up my trays most all the way with potting soil, made a hole with my finger, and put 3 seeds into each hole. It’s good practice to put multiple seeds in so that if one is a lemon, you still have the chance for the other two. Some seeds are super teeny and I got a bunch in there, but I did the best I could. Then I very gently covered them with soil, basically brushing the dirt gently back into place, and watered just a bit. You want the soil moist, not drowned.

For the Strawflower seeds, I sprinkled them on the top and then put their tray on a non-draining tray and bottom watered. Bottom watering is where you put water in the tray and let it soak into the soil up from the bottom. Watering from the top can displace the seeds when you’re trying to light germinate them.

Is there anything more hopeful than sprouts?

Oh, and don’t forget to label them! Very important — you don’t want to forget what each thing is, unless you like a mystery garden.

Keep your soil moist. Depending on your light and heat situation, that could mean watering gently every day or every couple days. I ended up getting trays for all and bottom watering mostly, because I found it pretty effective. I also used a spray bottle for misting for the more delicate seedlings.

I planted a mix of flowers and vegetables. I like to mix up my raised beds to attract good pollinators and keep pests away.

The seed packets should tell you how much time each seed takes to germinate. My flowers came up pretty quick. The vegetables are taking longer, but that’s totally okay. Because I’m in California, I can really start at any time and transplant when they get big enough because we rarely get a frost here. If you’re in a place where you get below freezing, the seed packets should tell you when to start and when to transplant.

Once you have several seedlings coming up in each section, it’s time for the sad part: trimming. In order to have the strongest plants possible for transplanting, you’ll need to find the strongest looking seedling in each pot, and then lop off the heads of the ones sharing its pot with sharp scissors. It’s very depressing, and I hate doing it, but if you don’t, the plants will crowd each other and become scraggly and weak. Trimming the tops off the others allows the strong seedling to grow without competing for resources with its pot-mates.

This is my basic set-up, complete with cat enjoying the sun. Once your seedlings are a couple inches tall and seem sturdy, it’s time to transplant them out into your garden. Rather than paying for starts, which are more expensive and limited in selection, you can grow nearly anything this way.

I have to admit, I’m a little addicted to seed starting and watching my plant babies grow. Is there anything more hopeful than a seed sprout?

I wish you success in anything hopeful you start this spring.

By Rev. Dr. Melinda V. McLain

In the Kitchen

While many folks have been baking their way into oblivion during the pandemic, I’ve been working on how to cook and eat cleaner and better with less effort, fewer trips to the grocery store, and without having to spend all my time planning and cooking meals. Besides, it’s more fun for me to buy spectacular bread from our chef friend Deirdre Davis of Pinoli Farmhouse Kitchen instead of learning to bake sourdough myself!

While I’ve developed a number of recipes to keep life interesting for all this pandemic cooking at home, I have developed a pretty good pattern of how to turn a single chicken into 10-12 meals over the course of a week or so. For a bigger household, you can also use my “chicken game” to extend your budget and meals or you could simply roast two chickens at a time and get 20-22 (or more?) meals!

This all begins with a whole roasted chicken. Sure you can buy them at various grocery stores already cooked, but you will pay more and get a smaller, drier, and less delicious chicken than if you learn to roast a fresh one in your own kitchen.

Perfecting my chicken game also helped me to get more value from the expense of buying better quality poultry from producers who raise the birds well and do not engage in some of the awful practices of less ethical poultry companies. I regularly buy Mary’s Organic Chicken from the El Cerrito Natural Grocery, but again do what works for you. Some big chains sell whole organic birds in two packs and that could bring your cost down, too.

Roasting a chicken isn’t all that hard, but it does take a bit of practice. We have a little countertop NuWave oven that we got when we lived in an apartment in San Francisco with a dreadful circa 1962 oven. Even after we moved and got a brand new stove, I still love using this oven for a roasted chicken. Use whatever you’ve got, but be careful with your initial seasoning so that the chicken can be used many ways.

I like to simply slather it with a mixture of olive oil, Meyer lemon juice, fresh chopped rosemary, and salt and pepper. The lemons and rosemary are available year round in our garden, so you can probably grow them too or get some from neighbors! I’m also a fan of placing the chicken on a rack breast side down and then flipping it over with a pair of tongs halfway through cooking. In the NuWave, I put sliced or cubed sweet potatoes and the chicken’s giblets in the bottom of the oven to cook in the juices of the chicken. Yummy and easy!

I admit that I was very fortunate to have been taught how to cut up a chicken by my great-grandmother whose chicken and egg operation allowed her family to survive during the Dust Bowl years. But even if you don’t know how to do it now, you can learn to quarter a chicken. And I’ve found that after quartering, I can divide the breast portion one more time to create a wing-breast portion and then use the rest of the breast and back meat later. We eat the leg-thigh combo in our first meal.

Our second meal usually includes rice or quinoa along with the wing-breast piece and we’ve now had four meals from one bird. But the magic comes when we use the rest of the chicken.

Over time, I’ve found and simplified or made-up lots of recipes that will create another 6-8 meals using the chicken that is left. Here are a few of my favorites, but adapt your own too!

Chicken soup with rice or noodles and lots of veggies. This is so easy to make when the chicken is already cooked. Be sure to use all the fat and juice from the roasting process plus some olive oil to sauté onions, celery, and carrots in a big soup pot, add chicken stock or broth, the chicken, and then any bite-sized veggies you have on hand. If you then add noodles or rice, this delicious and nutritious soup can stretch a long way! Use different seasonings to create variations on this basic recipe that can take you from Spain to China and back to Northern California. Be creative!

Thai green curry with chicken. There are a gazillion recipes for this dish, but I keep it simple by using Thai fish sauce, fresh garlic, coconut milk, and pre-made green curry paste. I cook cubed butternut squash in the coconut milk, add the bite-sized chicken, and then frozen green beans at the very end. Poured over rice, this is a one bowl meal that we can stretch into 4 to 6 meals. It also freezes well, so eat it one night and then defrost later when you don’t have time to cook.

Chicken putanesca sauce for pasta. In the summer, we often cook and freeze tomatoes from our garden to use later or you can buy canned tomatoes in quantity to have in your pantry. Sauté onions and garlic in a big pot, add the tomatoes, Italian seasonings, and slice Kalamata olives into the mixture. Use the juice from the olives too, but if the sauce is too thin, use a bit of arrowroot or cornstarch to thicken. Add the chicken and mix with your favorite pasta. This also freezes well and can extend to 6 or even 8 more meals!

Green chile chicken stew. This is the delicious and easy way to bring the flavor of the Southwest home. Sauté onions and lots of garlic in olive oil in a big soup pot. Add Mexican oregano and canned green chiles. Hatch chiles are the best, but other canned chiles work fine. Be sure to slice into bite-sized pieces if they are whole. Add chicken stock or broth and the chicken plus you can also add cubed potatoes or canned or home-cooked beans to extend the dish further. You can also add some hot sauce or hotter than hatch peppers if you want more zing. This stew is also good over rice - stretching it even farther - and is another great thing to have in the freezer.

In the summer, my chicken game includes making cold sesame noodles and a variety of chicken salads.

Got a great recipe that fits into the chicken game or want to know more about any of these recipes? I’m always ready to talk about good food for your own good table at home.

by Kelly Knight, Marketing Manager for The Good Table

Spiritual Touchstone

It’s winter, and while I’ve been appreciating the recent rain, I also can’t get fire season off my mind. This year’s fire season was the worst on record in many places, and caused trauma for a lot of us. The destruction and anxiety rests heavy for me, at a time when I should be looking forward to spring, growth, and new beginnings.

That being said, California’s ecosystem has a relationship with regular fire. Many of our trees have adapted to a consistent fire pattern, known as a “fire regime.” My college biology professor often spoke fondly of the Ponderosa Pine, a tree with a thick and latticed bark that easily withstands a low intensity fire.

This poster by Nina Montenegro has been on my mind a lot lately:

Image by Nina Montenegro, of The Far Woods

Some seeds only germinate when exposed to fire. That seems so crazy, but it’s true.

“...the actual seeds of many plants in fire-prone environments need fire, directly or indirectly, to germinate. These plants produce seeds with a tough coating that can lay dormant, awaiting a fire, for several years. Whether it is the intense heat of the fire, exposure to chemicals from smoke or exposure to nutrients in the ground after fire, these seeds depend on fire to break their dormancy. ”

— Your National Forests Magazine

It got me thinking about how fire in a spiritual context is often thought of as purification. When a fire sweeps through the land, it burns up all the dead undergrowth, purifying the landscape. In an environment that has adapted to fire, it can be a regular and natural cleansing process.

What seeds have germinated for us in the fire of 2020? In my life, I’ve definitely felt “fired up” to go deeper into activism, into my own commitment to social justice and compassion. I think some of us may have been dormant in different ways for a very long time, but the events of 2020 showed us that we can’t afford to be asleep to the realities of racism, the wealth gap, healthcare access, and lack of worker protections any longer.

Certainly, we all want the world to get better. It’s been a dismal time, there’s no doubt about that. Many of us are suffering in the wake of the pandemic, the wildfire season, the recession, while under the emotional and mental load of waiting for a vaccine.

But maybe, if we can find a little room, a little grace, the fire may have ignited that seed and something new and precious is coming. Maybe we’re kinder, more compassionate, more aware, more patient, more neighborly than we were before. Perhaps the fire burned up our pettiness, our cowardice, our willingness to look the other way when bad things happen to folks in our communities. It certainly seems evident that enough people were tired of the horrible mismanagement of the pandemic by former President Trump (as well as his corruption, greed, and narcissism) to vote him out, and for that, I am very grateful.

What other blessings have been germinating in your life? What other seeds will you plant?

I wish for you the seeds of peace, comfort, and compassion. May we all be healthy. May we all be safe. May we all be loved. And may we all find purpose as we work for a better society with equitable access to all of these things.

by Rev. Dr. Melinda V. McLain, pastor for The Good Table UCC

Image Credit: Live Japan

“Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.
How do you measure a year in a life? How about love?”

— Jonathan Larson in the song “Seasons of Love” from the musical Rent

Spiritual Touchstone

We’ve just passed the first anniversary of the first case of the novel coronavirus reaching the United States. But for me, the global pandemic truly “began” with our initial statewide lockdown on March 15, 2020 that also coincided with the liturgical season of Lent - a time when those of us on the Jesus path reflect on our mortality and humanity. At the time, I don’t think any of us could imagine all that would transpire in our world between then and now, but while the death and economic destruction has been devastating for millions, we have also been able to move forward on our project to create The Good Table and as a church, we’ve also been able to keep serving our communities with love. And not just love in the form of kindness, but in the form of measurable assistance to our neighbors in need.

Our Lent last year included the launch of a campaign by a group of United Church of Christ (UCC) local churches to erase all the available medical debt in Contra Costa and Alameda counties as part of our joint Good Friday service. We weren’t able to gather last Good Friday in person AND it took us a bit longer to finish the campaign, but with help from the national UCC, at its conclusion, our 2020 campaign erased $5,473,959.51 in medical debt for 2,604 families in 34 counties in California including $3 million in debt for over 1,000 families in Contra Costa and Alameda counties. I have no doubt that this campaign made a big difference to those families.

This year Lent begins on February 17th with Ash Wednesday. In previous years, we have had a joint contemplative prayer service with Taizé chants and the imposition of ashes with Christ Lutheran, El Cerrito. Two years ago our joint service also included Hope Lutheran, El Sobrante who also hosted a daytime service and we began our “Ashes on the Go” outreach during rush hour at Del Norte BART along with colleagues from Arlington UCC, Kensington. Last year, both the Japanese and English language congregations from Sycamore UCC, El Cerrito joined us at BART and for the evening service. In some ways, last year’s Ash Wednesday on Feb. 26th felt like the last time that any of us could do “public” ministry. And I know for sure that it was the last time that any of us were able to share a hug or hold hands while praying together.

With our UCC siblings, we plan to take on another Lenten love project this year called the Black Homeownership Fund (BHF) sponsored by Arlington UCC, Kensington and housed at the Richmond Community Foundation. The BHF would create a zero-percent-interest loan fund, to be paid back only when the home is refinanced or sold. This is especially helpful for providing assistance with the super high down payments needed to get into the Bay Area’s high-priced housing market.

We still have many months to go before we will be able to gather in person again. And it will be many months before our renovation of our site is complete. The death toll due to the pandemic will continue to rise and the economic crisis is far from hitting bottom, although the advent of vaccines and more economic stimulus may begin to slow the devastation soon.

And yet, we still have a lot of capacity for love in the form of caring, but also concrete and tangible assistance for our neighbors.

What gifts of love have you received during this time of pandemic and stress? What gifts did you give? What can we do to continue to increase love in our communities?

by Rev. Dr. Melinda V. McLain

Image of Native Ohlone

Spiritual Touchstone

There was a time when all the creeks flowing into the San Francisco Bay were free. Native Ohlone people fished in them for what must have seemed like an endless supply of salmon and other fish. When the Russians, the Spanish, and people from all over the world arrived in this place, things began to change. The Ohlones were either murdered, displaced, or removed and the creeks and streams were fished without limit. Finally, during the Gold Rush, mining companies flushed enormous quantities of toxic chemicals, especially mercury from the gold fields, through the watersheds into local creeks, ending up in the San Francisco Bay.

Today there are no salmon spawning in the creeks leading to the Bay, and the coastal creek salmon populations in Northern California are at 1% of historic levels. Another lingering effect from the mercury pollution is that dams built on local creeks often sequester concentrated quantities of mercury and other toxic pollutants, so efforts to remove dams to increase salmon runs is not a simple proposition.

When the dams were built they were of great benefit to the people living nearby. But like so many human activities, there have been unintended consequences that continue to present current challenges including significant mercury and methyl mercury pollution in Northern California waterways and the San Francisco Bay. It is a grim history that is mostly unknown to local residents.

Mining in the Bay Area

It is easy to want to just “tear down all the dams” in a desperate attempt to restore so much that has been lost. And yet, if all the dams came down tomorrow, the suddenly released chemicals would wreak unholy havoc and pollute all our watersheds immediately.

I’ve been thinking about this history as part of my own recovery from trauma I experienced early in life and all the trauma we experienced in 2020 due to a global pandemic, toxic politics, pervasive economic inequality, and a needed, but painful reckoning with racial injustice. Locally, last fall’s catastrophic fire season is now adding more trauma, as many are now back in evacuation mode due to potential flooding and mudslides near the burn scars. Plus, many of us have lost loved ones due to the virus and/or friends and family due to other causes such as cancer or old age. Tragically, all these deaths and losses have not been properly mourned because of pandemic restrictions and too many of us could not really say goodbye in person to beloved elders, family members, and friends. As a result, like the historic dams throughout Northern California, we all have accumulated previously unimaginable layers and layers of encapsulated grief.

It is common, and somewhat useful, to “dam up” and/or “compartmentalize” the effects of trauma so that we can keep functioning and caring for our families and neighbors. But this short term coping strategy can do long term damage if not tended carefully. The toxic feelings, grief, and even rage can become overwhelming if not channeled and safely addressed. More recent trauma can also release past traumatic memories.

As we begin 2021, some of the trauma we experienced in 2020 is beginning to lessen. Every time I watch another “vaccination video” or hear that a friend who works in healthcare or a beloved elder gets their shot, I find myself weeping with a mixture of grief and joy. I also feel cautiously hopeful that this long period of death, dying, destruction, and social isolation may be finally moving towards an end. This long overdue weeping for all the losses - both recent and historic - is helpful, but I also find myself beset by unspeakable sadness as all the toxic trauma begins to release.

I know how lucky I am to have survived infection with the virus last fall without any symptoms or other tragic consequences. I’m also incredibly grateful to be sheltering-in-place with my beloved spouse in a home with a big garden that is comfortable and safe. It is also an enormous privilege to have meaningful and well-compensated work that can be done mostly at home. And in addition to that economic privilege, I also benefit from being a well-educated white woman.

But even with all my blessings and privilege, I lost two beloved elders, several longtime friends and colleagues, and have been emotionally saddened by serious diagnoses within our immediate community. The losses from the wildfires and damage to the economic well-being of so many neighbors and friends (especially my friends in the performing arts) also weigh upon me. And these losses remind me of previous traumas - especially the huge losses I experienced as a young person and pastor during the HIV/AIDS “dying years”.

There are cracks forming in the dams I have unintentionally created to hold back all the sadness and grief. This is good news, but it isn’t easy because just at the time when I think I should be feeling better and more hopeful, I feel sad and anxious.

Thankfully, I have helping professionals and many other resources in my life to assist me in tending this grief and sadness. And because I have worked to heal from past traumas, I have some tools and skills including a long life of spiritual practice and study that carries me, even when my faith in God and the goodness of neighbors falters. As a helping professional and spiritual leader myself, I know that tending this grief and toxic trauma is a critical part of being able to fulfill my call and obligation to be of service to others.

Ohlone Salmon Fishing

If you find yourself feeling inexplicably awful these days - please know that you are not alone. And get whatever help you can to tend those feelings from professionals, support groups, or by making time to talk with trusted friends or family.

I’m also a big fan of rituals of cleansing and release. During the HIV/AIDS years, the creation of the Names Project and then the AIDS Memorial Quilt was such a helpful way to name and mourn all the losses and to create new memories in community to cherish.

Some years during Lent, I have simply taken scraps of paper and written the names, events, and even petty grievances that feel stuck in my soul and then released them by burning them - or putting the scraps in water so they melt. These rituals of remembrance and release provide and opportunity for weeping and prayer that leads to spiritual and emotional healing.

There are so many other ways to positively release all these pent-up feelings including making art, dancing, singing, shouting, long hikes, hugging trees, and even just letting yourself ugly cry while watching vaccination videos.

Whatever ritual or practice works for you, it will be greatly enhanced if you can do it with others safely online or outside with masks and social distance. Allowing ourselves to be witnessed and then comforted in our grief is essential to mourning well. We are social creatures who desperately need community and that is one of our greatest losses in this pandemic: we are all socially isolated to some degree and it really is hard to heal from grief without being able to hug friends and extended family.

These are challenging times and there is a lot of work to do so that each of us and our communities can be strengthened and healed. May it be so!